Punk Rock Singles 1978-1999

They Say...

Review by Mark Deming, All Music Guide

D.O.A. have made more than a few memorable albums during their career as Canada's greatest rock & roll troublemakers (which after thirty years finds Joey Shithead and company still marching on), but they've issued some of their most incendiary statements on the many singles they've released over the years, especially the "Instant Crisis" discs issued to address particular issues as quickly as possible, such as the "Fuck You"/"Burn It Down" 7," which benefited the legal defense of radical activists the Vancouver Five, and the "General Strike" 45, which attacked Canadian Premier Bill Bennett and his attempt to bust the nation's labor unions. Punk Rock Singles collects 26 songs that have graced D.O.A.'s 7" releases over the years, and while it doesn't top Bloodied But Unbowed as the ideal intro to their music, it's fun with a purpose from front to back. While D.O.A. are one band who have never backed away from their commitment to politics, they've always done so without sounding pretentious, and their meat-and-potatoes punk rock (which doesn't shy away from hard rock guitar figures and bellow-along choruses) was a fine match for their fist-shaking populism; they're one of the few punk bands that actually seemed convincing in the role of working class heroes, even if Joe Lunchpail wasn't usually checking out their shows. While the best tracks here are the stuff up to 1983 (especially the Positively D.O.A. EP and the "Right to Be Wild" benefit single), the drop-off in quality some might expect in the stuff from the '90s never really happens, and latter-day stuff like "Beat 'Em, Bust 'Em," "Dead Men Tell No Tales," "The Only Thing Green" and a potent cover of Black Flag's "Nervous Breakdown" demonstrate D.O.A. are still a tight bunch of anthemic hellraisers to this day, and this is top-shelf old-school punk. Fine music for beer drinking, fast driving and pissing off your boss -- crank it up today!